There have been plenty of times that I’ve screamed with frustration at Bricker’s debate tactics. But this time I’m willing to give him the ‘technical win’ because he admits the main point, that insurance companies routinely use trivial and unrelated factors to withhold payment for life saving medical care. The anecdote, though different in particulars of the life threatening illness, surely wasn’t bunk.
What I really want to hear from Bricker is how this affects him politically. Given the above set of facts, does he defend the current system, or would he now support changing it somehow, perhaps to reduce the effect the profit incentive has? Might he even accept a single payer option funded by direct taxation? Or might he offer some novel system of his own?
Are you suggesting that you are responsible and accountable for recalling every fact discussed in every thread in which you’ve participated?
And of course, not one of those threads talks about acne in relation to a heart attack, I’m guessing, so how can you say my memory failed me anyway? I’m supposed to have (a) recalled threads from months or years ago that (b) mentioned acne but (c) didn’t mention heart attacks but (d) DID mention breast cancer, and stitched all that together to be on top of this reference?
At a bare minimum, I’d support strengthening mandatory coverage laws to eliminate these kind of bad faith recissions, requiring that before an insurance company can rescind coverage, they have to show deliberate and material misrepresentation, and that they have only a set period to do so – like a statute of limitations, once a certain period had passed, they would be stuck. This would require them to act in good faith: if they are truly wary of someone who took acne medication years ago, drop them as a customer NOW, not when they become a liability. Of course, they won’t; they’d decimate their customer base.
In response to the idea that the acne/breast cancer recission had been well-publicized, you said
I figured that showing that the very case had been discussed multiple times on this board and that you had in fact had participated in one of the conversations might just be evidence that he was not in fact out of his fucking mind by suggesting that it had been well-publicized.
Yes, many people are comically uninformed when it comes to our political system. They don’t participate actively, or read the news, and so they don’t know basic facts that the rest of us take for granted. Like what year the U.S. declared independence, or that rescission has been used by insurance companies in many cases involving an absolutely minuscule and completely medically irrelevant failure to report past medical treatment.
People like that – and I’m glad you compared your ignorance to theirs because it might look like partisan sniping if I had to do it – have no useful insight to share in discussions of good public policy. If you have no idea what the problems are that we’re trying to fix, how can you address them?
Bricker, you are absolutely correct that we are under no obligation to remember every single minor detail that crosses our path over the years. I also respect the fact that you conceded that EP’s general point was actually valid.
I am somewhat surprised, though, that you were apparently unaware until just this moment of the extent to which insurance companies dishonestly treated their policyholders in order to deny coverage.
You were a pretty frequent contributor to debates over health care reform, and one of the central issues in those debates concerned the issue of creating a system that made arbitrary, profit-seeking decisions like this more unlikely. The term “rescission” essentially entered the American consciousness during the debates over health care reform in the period before and after Obama took office, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings on policy terminations in the summer of 2009. This is when Robin Beaton testified about her own case.
In a national debate where some of the central issues included the way that health coverage currently works in the United States, and the ways in which Americans can often be denied health care even if they actually pay for coverage, the fact that someone who spent some considerable time participating in the debate could be unaware of the issue of rescission in that debate is rather perplexing. While it’s not surprising that you didn’t remember Beaton’s specific case (i didn’t either), the fact that you were unaware of this behavior altogether surprised me, especially since you generally do seem to go to the trouble of informing yourself on the issues that you choose to debate on this board.
Thank you for the direct answer. I agree that this – or these, your above suggestions – would be “a bare minimum” but it is a step in the right direction.
That’s fair, and frankly, in re-reading that post in which I said it was bunk, I think the problem was (a) I didn’t find the claims plausible, but (b) failed to more fully investigate them to determine if they really were bunk. In other words, I called them “bunk” as a knee-jerk reaction, not a result of careful study.
I appreciate your comment that I usually inform myself a little better, and I usually do… but, for whatever reason, not this time.
And given that I have now seen the lack of knowledge I had, I’ve admitted as much. Can’t really do more.
Well. now, lets not rush things. For myself, I have little faith in drastic reversals of a political opinion. If one can change one’s mind that quickly, one isn’t changing anything of any significance anyway.
Not to get too picky, but it’s not impossible to be in favor of some sort of government involvement in healthcare AND remain politically conservative. My own state’s governor is an example of that: Mitch Daniels started a program that allows people who don’t qualify for Medicaid and have no access employer-sponsored insurance to obtain health coverage at a reasonable cost. The individuals do have to contribute, based on income (and I have to report any raise or increase in income when it occurs so they can adjust my monthly bill), but because it is subsidized for the poor and near-poor they aren’t shut out, and pre-existing conditions are no bar to joining up. It’s not a perfect solution, but it has enabled my spouse to keep up with his diabetes such that he is now healthier and requires less medication than when first diagnosed, as opposed to out of control/in the hospital/losing body parts. It has also enabled me to get care when I needed it so I could continue working instead of waiting until things were at ER levels of severity in order to get treatment. Yes, oh horrors, state subsidized health coverage (that is what it is) in a Red state. A down side is that it does lock us into staying in Indiana instead of going elsewhere in search of a better economy but we can live with that.
For TL:DNR - Bricker might “concede”/change his mind on this one issue but still otherwise be a conservative. One issue does not a liberal make.
